“The first kickoff return, I saw the wedge but a guy scraped the way I was going,” Scales said. “So I knew if I got the ball to me again I could do something with it, and our kickoff return team just blocked it up.”

The relative shortness of the touchdown return was due to two penalties against McCaskey (4-7), a personal foul after a Tornado score and an offsides on the first kickoff attempt.

McCaskey finished with 9 penalties for 80 yards.

“That’s the kind of season it has been,” Tornado head coach Rob Monzon said.

Central Dauphin started to put the game away in the fourth quarter, with Scales scoring his fourth touchdown of the game and McCaskey committing another key penalty.

The Rams drove 72 yards in 13 plays, taking 5:54 off of the clock to reach the end zone on a Scales 5-yard sweep to the left. That put District 3’s No. 2 seed up 30-20 with 9:18 left.

Six plays before the touchdown, McCaskey’s defense jumped offsides to turn a Central Dauphin 3rd-and-3 from the Tornado 41-yard line into a first down.

After a scoreless first quarter, the teams exchanged scores on the four straight possessions.

Scales scored on a 2-yard touchdown run 58 seconds into the game for a 7-0 Ram lead.

McCaskey quarterback Diante Cherry ran a near-perfect keep on an option and turned it into a 57-yard touchdown run with 8:48 left in the half.

The extra point was missed, so when Casey Hartzell connected on a 32-yard field goal, the Rams led 10-6 with 3:52 left before intermission. Scales had an apparent touchdown on that possession as well, but it was called back on a holding penalty.

McCaskey drove 63 yards in nine plays to reach the end zone on a 2-yard plunge by Avery Wilson with 19 seconds left.

Down 13-10 at the break, Central Dauphin scored on its first possession of the second half with Scales reaching the end zone with an 11-yard run. That made it 17-13 with 8:29 on the third-period clock.

McCaskey took its last lead when it answered with an 18-yard touchdown pass from Cherry to Swinton, making it 20-17 with 4:28 to go in the third.

Swinton finished with five catches for 131 yards. He caught screen passes of 51 and 36 yards.

Cherry was 16-for-23 for 315 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

“[The team] knew in some aspects we were outmatched,” Monzon said. “We’re not that big in the trenches. ... But they did what had to do to give Aaron and Diante the ball in space.”

Central Dauphin quarterback Brandon LaVia was 6-for-10 for 51 yards and on interception.